Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (1265-14 September 1321) was a major Italian poet of the Late Middle Ages, originally from Florence in Tuscany. Dante was once the guardian of Marco Polo's children in the Republic of Venice, influencing them with his intelligence. From 1308 to 1320, he wrote the famous narrative poem Divine Comedy, which featured Dante travelling to both heaven and hell. Dante's work led to the Tuscan dialect of Italian becoming the language of culture throughout Italy, and La Commedia is now regarded to be the greatest Italian literary work and the greatest poem of the Middle Ages. Dante died in Ravenna, Papal States in 1321.